


iMplode

by 8ucky8arnes



Series: fragMents [14]
Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Past Drug Addiction, Season 2 spoilers, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, john blames himself, mentions of bipolar disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8ucky8arnes/pseuds/8ucky8arnes
Summary: It didn’t matter that it was his own skin splitting, his own muscles and tendons tearing, or his own bones cracking.He didn’t care about how wrong it was.He deserved this pain.All of it.





	iMplode

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is going to be a heavy one since John is not in good head space and I apologize in advance. I know that I mentioned it in the tags but I'll put it here again that there are trigger warnings in effect for blood, self-harm, depression, mentions of past drug addiction, and mention of suicidal thoughts throughout the whole piece.

John stared at nothing, unmoving and still even as a storm ravaged him inside.

He could hear the movement of everyone in the complex, a hundred different footfalls and heartbeats drumming into his head like an ice pick. John hardly winced as a headache began building behind his eyes, throbbing in time with his own pounding pulse.

He forced himself up from the bathroom floor and stiffened.

Clarice wrapped a towel around her wet body, eyes glittering mischievously.

The sight was like a shotgun blast, a reminder that she’d stood there just hours before with love in her gaze and light in her smile. He could still smell the lavender and sage steam that had wafted from the shower, drops forming on her skin…

He very nearly reached out, to cup her cheek like he’d done then, pull her in…

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images didn’t stop. They never did.

_Purple hair spilling across the pillow…_

_Bright laughter and the pad of bare feet…_

_A sleepy smile…_

_His shirt slipping off her frame, exposing a bare shoulder…_

She was everywhere, a phantom presence that would linger for months…

John sank onto the couch, head clutched tightly in his hands. He racked fingers through his hair, the dull flare of pain completely drowned out by the agony gripping his chest and squeezing, squeezing, _squeezing…_

He gasped, taking a lungful of air that had his injuries aching in protest.

_“I love you too much to watch you kill yourself.”_

Her words were a white-hot poker had been driven through him, both then and now.

The pain was visceral, raw, like something vital had been torn from him.

God, it was all too much. He’d lost too much. Gus, Sonya, Evangeline, and now Clarice. Everyone he had ever loved, everyone who had pulled him from the darkness and kept him grounded had left him. He was so _lost_. Reeling. Off-kilter. Stumbling…

Right into a minefield of his own making.

He bent over, the guilt and the sadness and the pain bombarding him on all sides as he bit back his scream. Sonya’s airy laughter, Gus’ easy smile, Evangeline’s steady gaze, Clarice’s sharp tongue. A pile of wildflowers, an unmarked grave, a burned-out building, a cloud of dust swirling around a closed portal…

Then the anger joined the mix, engulfing him as it had in that instant on the hill, watching as the bodies of people ( _his_ people) were loaded one by one into the back of the ambulances, smelling the stench of burnt flesh, hearing the echoing screams and explosions as the building blew apart…

Feeling nothing but grief and rage…such rage…

He barely remembered the words that had exploded from him then, the red shroud over his vision diluting everything else as he’d swung at Erg. The blow to the chest had knocked him back to reality but in the split seconds, before he hit the ground, he couldn’t feel the roiling tide of darkness in him…he was as numb as his stone skin.

And it had been such a goddamn _relief_.

That relief had been a reminder of a time he tried not to dwell on, a time he drowned his emotions in the fighting and the drinking and the pills. A time where he’d found his enhanced senses as little more than a curse, a cruel cosmic joke that forced him to listen to all the world and its ugliness, to see it as vividly as he were right there…and leave him unable to do anything, unable to protect anyone…

A time that Evangeline had pulled him out of.

But now she was gone.

Everyone was _gone._

He lashed out, the coffee table splintering under his fist. “ _Damnit!_ ”

Surging to his feet, he ran, mindless of a destination and somehow finding himself right back in the junkyard when that familiar scarlet gaze enveloped him completely. He didn’t register the sound of his hands smashing into the metal and glass over and over again or the screeching as he ripped the car frames apart or the heavy scent of his own blood mixing with the rust and oil and mud…

But he could finally feel something else in those moments, something other than the emotional maelstrom ripping through him. It didn’t matter that it was his own skin splitting, his own muscles and tendons tearing, or his own bones cracking.

He didn’t care about how wrong it was.

He deserved this pain.

All of it.

For everything he’d done.

All the people he’d failed ( _“I couldn’t make them believe”_ ).

All the lives lost because of him _(“I’ll make them pay for what they did to you”_ ).

All the hearts broken ( _“I’m saying goodbye”_ ).

He screamed, a guttural sound that was more wounded animal than a person, and fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around himself like he could keep from breaking apart completely. But it was slipping through his grasp like blood, pouring from the gaping hole in his chest…

God, it still hurt.

Everything _fucking_ hurt-

His fingers ached and throbbed and itched to hit, to tear, to maim...

He forced himself upright, needing to feel more pain, to cause more damage regardless of the small voice screaming the back or his mind to _stop, reconsider, you don’t have to do this_ and _we can find another way…_

Another voice was breaking through the pain, a whisper that somehow overshadowed the chaos of his mind, a low purr that promised relief, a way to numb everything he was feeling inside right now, to quiet all the noise and dull the pain for _just a little bit_ …

His hands trembled, his body already remembering the feeling of the blissful numbness-

“No.” He choked out, shaking his head, “I don’t want that.”

_But you do. Already your body betrays you…_

He tried to shove the voice aside with all the reasons he shouldn’t and reminding him of his purpose like he’d always done. But the reasons were becoming outnumbered and overwhelmed ( _shewasgoneshewasgone-_ ) and the purpose of leading the Underground seemed further and further from his grasp, which only made the voice more persistent.

_Everyone left you…they abandoned you…deserted your cause…_

He clenched his jaw, putting his bloody fist _through_ the metal. “Stop!”

_What kind of leader stands by and lets their people die?_

He swings again and again, the pain not piercing the white noise. Everything besides the voice; every thought, every feeling; was static to him. Indecipherable. Dulled to just the barest of sensations as his blood smeared across the metal…

_You failed them all. As a leader, a soldier, a man…_

John was sure something in his hand cracked.

_She left you. What kind of person wants to be around a failure like you?_

Tears blurred his vision and his muscles burned…

_Marcos will leave you too…leave you and go back to Lorna…_

He staggered, remembering the night he’d sat Marcos and Lorna down and the morning lying in bed with Clarice, when he opened up them about his past addiction. They hadn’t ever judged him, not once, but a small part always whispered that they’d seen him as a weak, disappointment of a man.

_They knew it then. Couldn’t wait to get rid of you…_

He was running, running, _running_ , trying to block it out, to burn it away with exhaustion but as he slowed in front of the apartment building, her voice was the one that came back and it was almost worse…

_“Hey handsome, wanna go home?”_

_Home?_ The voice spat. _That isn’t a home, not anymore…_

John ignored both voices as he moved stiffly across the street, somewhat glad that the late hour kept others from seeing him like this, seeing him broken and alone, looking at him with sadness and pity…

_There’s no one here to see you fall so why does it matter?_

He clenched his jaw and shook his head, muttering, “Stop, stop, stop, stop…”

_You’re alone now and you always will be._

His hands throbbed in unison, as if his body was telling him that hurting himself hadn’t made the agony in his chest any more bearable…it only multiplied the pain and reminded him just broken he was, in body and in mind…how much of a failure he was for slipping so badly…

_What does it matter now if you slip a little further?_

John curled his hands into fists, pain once moving up his arms. “No more…”

_It’s not like anyone is going to notice anyway…_

Somehow, he’d stumbled to their apartment where the ghost of Clarice haunted him with every step, every breath... Tormented him with faint laughter that echoed off the walls, wide smiles reflecting the light, the play of shadow over her body and those breathtaking, brilliant green eyes…

_“Where Blink, the woman you claim to love, has to hide who she is?”_

Erg’s words sent a new wave of anger washing over him because he didn’t know a _damn_ thing about him and Clarice. He hated watching her cover herself up from the world as much as she did, hated how the world couldn’t see just how amazing and resilient and funny and _beautiful_ she was. They never saw past her eyes…

_Her watery eyes reflecting the sunlight as she turned away, her hand falling from his…_

His throat closed up, the tears finally spilling over as a choked sob slipped out…

And the last pieces of his resistance shattered.

A shudder went through him as he moved to the bathroom, hands shaking as he pulled out the first aid kit from out and dumped the contents into the sink. The two orange pill bottles seemed to glow in the dim light, like a last-ditch effort from his mind to _stop this, stop this right now, don’t do this, don’t go down this road…_

He picked both up, turning them to find that there no labels.

 _Makes sense_ , a part of him noted, _can’t be traced back to the clinic_.

_Doesn’t matter what’s in there...it’ll numb you just the same._

He sank to the floor and let himself fall back against the open bathroom door, dimly aware of the faint splintering of the wood behind him. He slowly rotated the bottles, the sound of pills against plastic so loud in his ears. An old, familiar sound…

“John?’

He didn’t look up, but caught a flash of emerald hair.

A small part of him had expected Marcos (he could now hear him hovering just off the side), but it had never occurred to them that Lorna would ever return to the apartments…not when everyone looked at her with such blatant distrust and betrayal.

Then again, Lorna didn’t care too much what the others thought of her.

“John, can you hear me?”

His voice was surprisingly hollow when he responded, “I can hear everything.”

Lorna knelt in front of him, smelling of leather and metal. “Look at me.”

John continued to slowly rotate the bottles, but the rest of his body was immovable and it was a wonder he was even breathing…or was he? The pain in his chest was layers of aching and throbbing and burning.

“John, please talk to me.”

He flinched as her voice cracked. Lorna hardly ever cracked. She was as cool and sharp as the knives currently strapped to her thighs, her smiles always carrying an edge to them whether it be playful or angry, but he’d never heard this pain, this pleading in her tone…

She was scared.

_He was scaring her…_

_See? All you do is hurt people…disappoint them…_

“Talking doesn’t change anything.” John spoke, “Doesn’t change the fact that Evangeline is dead and Clarice is gone. Talking doesn’t fix what happened in Atlanta or that the Underground is dying. Talking won’t change the fact that it’s all my fault.”

“No.” Lorna snapped, the familiar hardness back in her voice, “You don’t get to do that.”

His lifted his gaze, “Does it really matter what I do?”

Her lips parted in shock, eyes widening at whatever she saw, “John…”

“Everyone leaves anyway. _You’ll_ leave…again.”

Hurt flashed across her face and she flinched.

“And even if you leave, I’ll still see you…like I see her.” _Clarice._ He couldn’t even say her name now, the syllables trapped in his throat like speaking it would conjure her image. “She’s like a ghost, torturing me with the reminder that my love wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t enough…” His fingers flexed on the bottles, the plastic starting to crack, “And it _hurts,_ Lorna. I just- I want…I _need_ the pain to stop.”

“The pills, John…they don’t help. You always told me that.”

“You don’t understand, I can’t…they’re took much. It’s all too much…” He shook his head like he could dislodge the hurricane raging in his mind. “The emotions just keep pressing and pressing and pressing and I feel like-”

Lorna’s voice was soft now, “Like you’re drowning?”

He pressed his lips into a line. _He’d said too much_.

“I _do_ understand, John.” She reached out, placing her hands over his, “I _know_ what’s it’s like to not want to feel anything. To just lay down and block out the world because then you wouldn’t have to think about everything and everyone that you’ve lost. To just go to sleep and not care if you wake up or not.”

Marcos sucked in a sharp breath.

“You never left me then. You helped me through it.” She tightened her fingers despite the bruises and the blood so he could _feel_ her, “I’m not leaving you, John…not like this. So please… _please…_ Just let me help you, _bruder_.”

The word sent a pang through him that he could feel above everything. It had been so long since he’d heard that term of endearment from her because the language, like his, was a reminder of a family they’d left behind one way or another.

The lump in his throat cracked apart, a broken sound escaping. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, _shilah_.”

Her smile was so sad, “Give me the pills, John.”

He released his grip, hearing her toss them to Marcos and tell him _to get rid of them_.

_Not hide them. Get rid of them._

His hands shook and he looked down, horrified at what he’d done to himself.

He’d expected the bruises and blood but not the long lacerations into his palms and up his forearms or the sickening gleam of white where his knuckles had split to the bone. It had been so long since he'd done this much damage to himself.

“John,” Her hands cupped his face, “look at me.”

He lifted his head.

“Let’s get you off the floor and onto the bed-”

He cut her off, voice sharp, “Not the bed.”

She blinked, something flashing across her eyes, “The couch then?”

He nodded, slowly getting to his feet and following her out to the main room, noting that the splintered remains of the table had been piled up at one end. He could hear Marcos moving around in the kitchen, muttering irritably in Spanish. “The mugs are in the cupboard left of the microwave. Top shelf.”

Marcos paused, “How in the hell-”

“ _Taza de café_.” Was his simple response.

“Your accent sucks, you know that?”

Lorna chuckled, “If I recall, I said the same to you at one point.”

John almost cracked a smile at the familiar interaction, like no time had passed-

The faint scent of strawberries hit him the moment the images did: Clarice with her arm slung over the back of the couch, cheek resting on her hand as she watched him, the sunlight through the window bringing out strands of violet and rose gold in her hair…

He shook his head, the image bringing him crashing back to earth.

Lorna noticed his change of mood, holding up the first aid kit, “Permission to approach?”

He raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged, sitting down next to him. “Thought I’d try it out. Take off your shirt.”

“Just my hands, Lorna.”

She frowned, “If you don’t _take_ it off, I’m _cutting_ it off.”

Marcos hummed, “Should I be jealous, babe?”

John was sure his expression mirrored Lorna’s, an incredulous almost horrified look.

Marcos laughed, “Oh my God…your faces!”

Lorna rolled her eyes fondly, shaking her head, “John…”

He glanced at Marcos, his friend’s dark eyes bright with laughter and sighed, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips before he turned to eye the long sleeves sticking to his skin with a sigh. _Another shirt to the trash_. “Just cut it off. It’s a lost cause anyway.”

With practiced ease, she cut away both his shirt and bandages.

He sat still as she wiped his chest and back with a wet washcloth, watching as she placed bandages over the spots of skin still healing from the buckshot. Again, the familiarity of the whole interaction had him remembering a different time…

She said nothing as she finished wrapped and moved on to his hands.

He went to straighten his fingers when she stopped him, running a glowing hand back and forth over his own, “You have some metal in here. I need to take it out.”

John steeled himself as she tugged.

Lorna set aside the small shards of bloody metal before continuing on. Her expression didn’t change as she cleaned the wounds, pale skin streaked with red as she wiped around some of the larger lacerations.

He didn’t move for the next half hour, even as Lorna pressed the bandages down onto his broken knuckles or when Marcos cauterized some of the deep cuts on his forearms. He didn’t say anything either as the two bickered occasionally, teasing him as they put him back together because for that small piece of time, it was just the three of them.

_“We need to be able to depend on each other 100%.”_

_“1,000%.”_

_“Always.”_

Lorna squeezed his shoulder hard enough for him to feel the pressure.

He came out the memory, looking at the woman, his partner of so many years, his sister _,_ and his heart ached. He knew she couldn’t stay, that she had to leave before anyone knew where she’d gone…who’d she’d been with. “You’re going back.”

“Yes.” She reached up with her other hand, palm pressed to his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

John smiled sadly, “Be careful, _shilah_.”

Lorna pressed a kiss to his forehead and stepped back with a sharp smile, a knife spinning between her fingers. Her eyes glowed with ferocity and confidence, “Always.”

Marcos kissed her goodbye, dark eyes watching her leave with such longing.

John slowly got to his feet, a bandaged hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be back.”

“She won’t be the only one.”

John blinked, turning to Marcos.

“Clarice left because she was scared, John. Scared of losing anyone else she loved.” He held John’s gaze with his own, “You and I both know the power of fear…and love. She may have left, but she isn’t gone. Lorna came back, brother. You have to believe Clarice will too.”

His fingers dug into Marcos’ skin, no doubt bruising him, but his friend didn’t even flinch.

“Let’s go back to my apartment tonight, alright?”

John nodded gratefully, pulling on the shirt he’d been handed and he looked back at the apartment at faint scent of her strawberry shampoo to find her just out of arm’s reach, looking at him with those brilliant eyes and radiant smile as she watched him leave.

_“She may have left, but she isn’t gone.”_

“John?”

He shook his head, her image vanishing as he blinked and turned, “Hmm?”

Marcos was looked at him thinly veiled concern, “Ready to go?”

_“Lorna came back, brother. You have to believe Clarice will too.”_

“Yeah.”


End file.
